What My Dad Take Pictures Of

FYI: When you accidentally upload your father's ENTIRE memory card instead of the six photos you intended to, you get a whole lot of random photos! This is what Everyday Dad takes pictures of.

Sasha the dog. She likes to snuggle...and shed. She crosses her legs like a lady because she's dainty dog.

Turkeys came to visit. They are tall and ugly.

An Alaskan fishing boat in the fog...with a bird.

Everyday Mom riding in a Rhino in Alaska. Helmets were necessary...those suckers were designed to roll.

Rainbow in the mountains in remote Alaska.

A REAL LIVE LADY MOOSE! M this one is for you!

Seagulls in flight. They look much more majestic than when they are scavenging for food.

Early morning snow in Maine.

Mt. McKinley in Alaska.

Bald eagles...eating dead stuff.

A stubborn cuke growing through the slats on the porch swing.

The black, mutant squirrel that is so friendly (a.k.a. greedy) you can get close enough to it to pet it.

A & M Do Maine

I really wanted to bring M to Maine because I think it's wonderful and I wanted her to love it as much as I do. We had a very limited time, but we managed to see two lighthouses, lots of oreo cows, one llama, two moose, lots of deer heads, a lake, some mountains, and the ocean in two different spots...all in less than 24 hours.

We crossed the green bridge into Maine and our first stop was York, ME. As we were fishing for coins to feed the meter to park, a kind gentleman handed me some change and said, "I hope you enjoy Maine." Those Maniacs Mainers sure are nice.

The ocean was coldddddd.

After putting our toes in the ocean, we drove around the corner to Nubble Lighthouse. It is on an island and you can only get to it by this chair lift bucket thing.

Scuba Steve emerged from the ocean out of nowhere.

The theme of our East Coast adventure was ice cream. We had to have some in Maine.

After visiting The Nubs, we ventured to York Village. We watched as they pulled taffy, visited the York Zoo, and M found her store.

We left York, sandwiches in hand, ready for the second leg of our adventure. At the Kennebunk rest area, we briefly stopped to pet the moose. 

Our second lighthouse of the day was Portland Head Lighthouse (which I visited solo back in June). It was a gorgeous day and the clouds made for a lovely postcard picture.

The tide was in so the rocks I climbed on last time were under water. M enjoyed playing Little Mermaid.

After a busy day of sight lighthouse seeing, we finally made it to the house. Before we cooked dinner, I made M go swimming with me. It was warm and beautiful and we were the only people there. She bravely brought her camera into the lake to take mermaid pictures.

We cooked dinner and enjoyed a bottle of wine.

The fake eyelashes came out and M insisted on doing giving me a makeup tutorial for the wedding I was about to be Maid of Honor in. M had the giggles and wondered why I didn't want her poking at my face.

Somehow, I mustered up the courage to actually let her get near my eyeballs with pointy objects. #YOLO.

For some reason, I always wake up super early when I stay in Maine...like sunrise early. And it never disappoints.

We had a quick breakfast and were on our way home. But not before saying hello to the oreo cows.

And the llamas. This guy wanted to say hello back...or he wanted to eat us.

On the way home, we stopped in Kittery to see a real-live, dead moose. 

It's pretty incredible what you can do in 24 hours. New England is special in that, you can drive from Massachusetts to Maine for the night. Come visit and I'll show you!

Read about A&M's other adventures here:

Freedom Trail

Boston

Salem, MA

Concord, MA

Foxes...

Are fast.

Which is a good thing because I really don't want to add another animal to my road kill count.

I took an impromptu road trip today and was driving home in the dark. Something ran across the highway and before I even processed what it was and hit the brakes, the thing was safely on the other side of the guardrail.

Well played fox. Well played.

P.S. I also saw an awesome sunset tonight and managed to avoid all thunderstorms ever.

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Dear Library,

I recently read the following book:

On the side of the book you affixed the following sticker:

Obviously you have not read this book. The only animal in the story is the horse that pulls the plow. In fact, it is a story about a young boy with promising intellectual abilities who leaves school to return home to help care for his father who has just had a stroke. The boy learns to communicate with his father who can no longer speak and decides to build a barn with his brother and sister. He hopes that having something to look forward to will help his father get better. The boy finishes the barn late one night and decides to wait until morning to show his father. Now, I don't want to ruin the end of the story for you but guess what happens to his father that night?

So dear library, you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover (or title). Some poor, unsuspecting child is going to pick up this book expecting to read about piggies and get quite the life lesson instead.

XOXO,
Amy

GEESE!

Fly Away Home was on TV this weekend which was quite apropro. For one, I love the movie. For two, the main character is named Amy and has a cool accent. For three, the subject of Canadian geese is highly relevant to my day to day life.

You see...at my school/work, there is a GIANT marsh and pond surrounding the field and playground (and no...there is no fence). But in the spring with the pond comes alive with Canadian geese.

They do funny things like:

• Mate outside the 5th grade windows during MCAS testing. (P.S. They are noisy when they do that.)
• Chase each other around...wings out, necks curved...hissing:

• Make a nest on top of the beaver lodge. Like so: 

• Poop all over the playground (which then the kids pick up and throw at each other...right before heading inside to eat lunch) <---Kids are gross.

In a (failed) attempt to keep the geese off the playground, they have outfitted the orange, plastic snow fence with sparkly pinwheels. 

Yes, this is the truth. 

Yes, my school is silly.

File under: #But geese LOVE pinwheels.

   

Dogs Are Awesome

This should be an ASPCA commerical! 

Instead of ruining my iTunes library they should be all, "See how awesome dogs are? Give us money."

 

Dear ASPCA,

I know you are trying to save all the puppies. Believe me, if I could adopt them all I would.  But please, PLEASE stop ruining my iTunes library.  The songs Angel, Silent Night, and You Were Always on My Mind will now forever be associated with sad, sick, abused puppies.  So thanks for that.

XOXO,
Amy

 

On 495

I saw a camel on the highway today.

Yes...a camel.

And before you're all, "Um, Amy..." let me explain.  I'm driving home from the grocery store in almost-but-not-quite rush hour traffic when I happen upon one of those horse trailers that you pull behind a pick up truck.  The trailer had the slats open so you could see the animal.  So I look over and there is a camel lying down with his face sizing up my car.

My first thought was, "Whoa...there is a camel...weird."
My second thought was, "I need to blog about this."
My third thought was, "Wait...why would there be a camel in a horse trailer?"
My fourth thought was, "Wait...that can't be a camel...this is New England."

I quickly tried to rationalize what I saw.  It must have been a llama.  A really big llama. But as I passed the truck, there were two huge, tour bus sized vehicles full of animals.

It was a children's traveling circus.

So that explains the camel.

 

Don't Get Excited...

This is merely a breaking the seal type of post just to get me back into the swing of things.  Let me tell you some stuff...

I had a lunch date with T-FACE today. Except I was the worst lunch date ever and only ordered a frozen, blended coffee drink ice cream in a cup. Then we went to buy Cory Feldman a new tank. I made some new friends:

There is something about the open road, a great song and a beautiful sunset that makes everything feel right in the world.

I've been working on #24  from The List this week because 1,000 is a lot.

And yes.  I do keep them in a plastic pumpkin.

    

A Biblical Letter

Dear Noah,

I thought you would be here by now...seeing as how it has rained for my entire life and I can't even remember what it is like to be sunny.  I thought by now you would have taken the arc out of storage.  I thought you would have dusted it off.  What are you waiting for?  I'll start hoarding pairs of animals (I'll begin with puppies)...you just have to come through with the boat.

Let's make this happen.

XOXO,
Amy

   

Six on Sunday: Ornithology Edition

FYI:  In my spare time I'm kind of a bird whisperer.

1.  "I'll chew your finger off if you don't get away from that puddle.  My kids want to go swimming."

2.  "U-G-L-Y I ain't got no alibi, I'm ugly.  Oh and I used to be a dinosaur."

3.  "You talkin' to me?  Who the fuck do you think your talkin' to?" 

4.  "Yes, I'm going to swallow it whole.  What?"

5.  "You fuck my wife?  You fuck my wife?"

6.  "I'm sorry.  All I heard was blah, blah, blah, I'm a dirty tramp."

  

Just In Case You Thought I Was Joking

I HATE horses.  But I LOVE My Little Ponies.  And I used to LOVE this movie.  When I was little, I would rent it from the video store all the time.  So after I watched Rainbow Bright on Netflix Instant, I added this to my queue to see if it was as good as I remembered.  Let me save you an hour and a half of your life.

An evil witch and her two daughters live on a volcano.  They hate the ponies.  The witch makes purple Smooze to cover Pony Land.

Lickety Split is a prima donna.  She tries to show up everyone at the recital and ruins the dance.

She gets reamed out.

 She and her dragon friend sing a song then run away.

This is where I got lazy.  A lot of other stuff happens but the purple Smooze covers the My Little Pony dream castle.

Some Pegasus ponies are friends with people.  They tickle a giant spider to get to Flutter Pony Land.

Rose, Queen of the Flutter Ponies, refuses to help.  Bitch.

They have a change of heart.  The Flutter Ponies vomit sunshine and glitter on the purple Smooze, making it retreat.

They all live happily ever after.

Sadly, it wasn't as entertaining as I once found it to be.  Although I did remember a surprising amount of the movie for not seeing it in 20+ years.  I guess I should start renting grown up movies again.  Sigh.